


Sunset's Wake

by stillwaters01



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Minor Character, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:24:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillwaters01/pseuds/stillwaters01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t until that moment, when the dazed man in the practical black jacket came pushing through the crowd and into her arms, that she understood why she had been drawn outside St. Bart’s that day. Minor character POV on John during, and after, The Fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunset's Wake

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
> 
> Written: Original notes: 10/24/12. Written: 11/25 – 12/9/12.
> 
> Brit-pick: Many thanks to the wonderful debriswoman, who was especially helpful in educating me about differences between US and UK funeral practices. 
> 
> Notes: Since my first viewing of “The Reichenbach Fall,” I’ve been drawn to how one particular background character – blue skirt and blazer, white blouse, hospital ID around her neck, gray hair pulled back in a ponytail - handles John outside St. Bart’s in the wake of Sherlock’s jump. She is the one person - hospital employee or bystander – who completely focuses on John; the only one to put her back to Sherlock’s body and keep her eyes fixed on John, maintaining constant physical contact with him and following him to the ground when he collapses. She is the only one John speaks to; the one person he leans into at the end when the shock becomes too much, seconds before regaining his feet and pushing everyone away with defensive hands and posturing. Even then, she is the last one to leave him. I felt that there was a greater story behind that woman – who has no name, no dialogue, and is on screen for less than two minutes – and her approach to John that day. This is the story she gave me. While the character has no name in this piece (she didn’t offer a name and I didn’t feel right arbitrarily choosing one), her year of birth was set as 1959, making her 52 years old during the episode. The theme of hands and faces in relation to our humanity was inspired by something my anatomy and physiology professor told us years ago when we saw our first cadavers. Episode research involved watching the same 1 minute and 38 seconds of TRF (1:21:46 – 1:23:24 on the DVD) countless times in order to catch all the character details within the chaotic scene. I paid particular attention to 1:22:07 – 1:23:11, writing out time-stamped notes on actions, body positioning and language, facial expressions, dialogue and tone, and atmosphere. Any dialogue quoted from the episode does not belong to me. Thanks to Aithine’s incredible screencap site, the woman can be seen on the far left [here](http://sc.aithine.org/sherlock/203/25/sherlock-203-24540.jpg) and with John [here](http://sc.aithine.org/sherlock/203/25/sherlock-203-24928.jpg). This story was quite a journey, from repeatedly watching Martin Freeman’s heartbreaking portrayal of John’s grief and shock, to jotting down the woman’s history as it came in bits and pieces over several weeks, to the days of writing and editing the final product. I truly hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading.

 

 

The first time she saw a dead body, she was eight years old; when her mum, an undertaker, brought her to the funeral parlour while school was on holiday. She had been to her mum’s job before; the office had a big, comfortable armchair where she’d curl up to draw pictures for the staff and listen to Mr. Finnemore’s stories about his farm. But that day, after hanging up their coats, her mum took her hand and brought her to the back of the building, beyond the doors she’d always been told not to open. Still holding hands, they walked up to a table where an elderly woman lay in a vibrant purple dress, her hands and face covered by thick white cloths, curly silver hair poking out beyond the barrier.

 

“This is Mary. She’s one hundred and two years old, loves the color purple - ”

 

“Like me!”

 

“Yes, like you,” her mum smiled, giving her hand a warm squeeze, “and she took care of sick animals for almost seventy years. She died yesterday.”

 

It was her first real introduction to death.

 

Over the next several years, her mum continued to bring her to work on the occasional school holiday or at the weekend, introducing new, neatly clothed bodies with white cloths over their faces and hands.

 

“This is Alastair. He’s eighty-six years old, loves scuba diving, and served in the RAF.”

 

“This is Mark. He’s seventy years old, was a tailor, and has a dog that’s taller than your father!”

 

“This is Katya. She’s ninety-three years old, was a scientist born in the USSR, and bred Siamese cats.”

 

Once she reached her thirteenth birthday, the verb tense shifted from a mixture of present and past to past tense only and the bodies - and stories behind the hidden faces and hands - started to change.

 

“This is Charlie. He was forty years old, studying to be a doctor, and died from a burst blood vessel in his brain.”

 

“This is Sean. He was thirty-eight years old, a fireman, and died saving a family from a burning house.”

 

“This is Lyla. She was twenty-one years old and had a heart attack while giving birth.”

 

“Why do you do that?” she blurted out. She wasn’t sure if it was to distract herself from both the shock of seeing someone so close to her own age and the horrifying reminder that birth didn’t always end in life, but the non sequitur response came out like a punch. As if, after all this time, she was not only just noticing it, but suddenly needed to know: _right now_.

 

“Do what?” her mum asked, in that familiarly reassuring ‘I think I know what you mean, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions’ tone of hers.

 

“Cover their hands and faces like that,” she gestured at the cloths, eyes fixed on the young woman’s abdomen.

 

Her mother sighed softly, eyes half in the present, half in the past. “Our hands and faces are what make us human; what identify us as a person, a life with a history all its own. Our entire life’s story is written there. When those are covered, it’s easier to see a body as just……a body. A vessel.”

 

“But you’ve been telling me their stories for years,” she said; both protest and reminder, tangled well beyond separation.

 

“Only the tiniest bit that _I’ve_ been told,” her mum corrected. She paused, as if searching for the words of an explanation she’d long prepared and now finally had to give. “Seeing their hands and faces….seeing their story and hearing it at the same time….it can be overwhelming, even if you never knew them. When they’re covered like this, it’s often easier to manage the loss, to separate the body from the story of the person they were. When you can see them fully, you can read between what others tell you; it’s impossible _not_ to. You get to know them, and therefore, you mourn them. And that can hurt.”

 

She chewed her lip, considering her mum’s words. “Is her baby going to be all right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How…..” she swallowed thickly, eyes moving to the covered face. “How is her husband?”

 

Her mum’s expression shifted; something very subtle, as if her daughter was starting to ask the right questions. A hint of pride and….success? And then it was gone, tucked away behind the sobering response to her query. “He has a beautiful, healthy daughter and he’s burying his wife tomorrow. He’s very happy. And very, very sad.”

 

Her eyes lingered on the cloth covered face, eyes burning, fighting back a sniffle. If it hurt this much _now_ , she couldn’t imagine how her mum ever looked at them one hundred percent.

 

“Do you want me to take it off?” her mum asked softly, following her gaze.

 

“No,” she shook her head jerkily. A little sob escaped despite her best efforts and her mum swiftly wrapped her in a hug. She turned away from the table, buried her face into her mum’s chest, and cried; the ever-present ring on the chain around her mum’s neck a cool, comforting weight on the top of her head.

 

“Oh, sweetheart,” her mum whispered, hugging her close. “I’m sorry.”

 

She lifted her head at what sounded like doubt and regret in her mum’s voice. “No, it’s….it’s okay, mummy. I _want_ to see, just…..” She sniffled wetly, swiped at her eyes to clear her vision, and looked up at her mum - a wordless explanation and assurance -  before shifting herself so that her back was resting against her mum’s chest and her eyes were back on the body – _Lyla_ – on the table.

 

_I’m not hiding. I’m just not ready. Yet._

Over the next six months, she began asking more about the deceased’s lives and even what killed them; her mind opening and accepting as she “met” new bodies. But their hands and faces stayed covered.

 

Then one day, two weeks after her fourteenth birthday, she walked in to find two bodies laid out. One was completely covered and very, very small.

 

“A baby?” she whispered, as if the child was still alive and she was afraid to wake it.

 

Her mum nodded and she got what she’d later remember as the first real glimpse of the sadness in her mum’s eyes; the toll of caring for the dead.

 

“Do you remember Lyla?” her mum asked quietly.

 

She nodded. Of _course_ she did, how could she forget…..and then she was physically knocked back a step with force of the connection. “No,” she shook her head; pure, vehement disbelief.

 

“This is Andrew, Lyla’s twenty-three year old husband, and Amanda, their six and half month old daughter,” her mum said wearily.

 

“Both of them?” she choked out. “How?”

 

“Car crash.”

 

“ _Why_?” she demanded, rage surging where, a moment ago, there had only been shocked sadness.

 

“I’m afraid that’s something I _can’t_ answer,” came the worn response.

 

“It’s not fair.”

 

“No, it isn’t.”

 

She stepped forward, drawn to the tables. “I want to see them.”

 

One of the things she loved most about her mum was how she trusted and respected her judgment, even as she watched out for her during those tumultuous teenage years. The pause was her chance to change her mind, and when her response was to take another step closer to the bodies, her mum simply came up and removed the cloths from Andrew’s face and hands in an equally silent acquiescence.

 

“Amanda too?” her mum clarified softly.

 

She could only nod, eyes rooted to the man, the open life, in front of her.

 

She studied each of them in turn. Apart from the skin color and a few cuts and bruises, they looked like they could have been sleeping. “They don’t look like they should be dead,” she mused aloud. She’d imagined a lot worse with something as awful as a car crash.

 

“Internal injuries,” her mum supplied. “And we’ll take care of the cuts and bruises before the family comes to the chapel of rest tomorrow.”

 

“Can….can I come?” She wasn’t quite sure why she asked. She didn’t really know them, except that now, she sort of felt that she did.

 

Her mum’s tired eyes brightened. She smiled and there was that pride again, like another step taken. “Of course you can.”

 

And so she attended her first viewing, for Andrew and Amanda Orson. Standing somberly next to her mum, clad in an equally simple black dress, she watched her greet family wearing dark clothing and darker eyes. She stood in the corridor and listened to people talking, crying, and laughing; simultaneously sharing stories and wondering ‘why?’ while the minister who stopped by attempted to offer answers. After the last person paid their respects and the chapel was silent once more, she walked up to the boards of photos surrounding the two coffins; life condensed down to a handful of still images. There were photos of Amanda growing up, of Andrew as a child himself, of Andrew and Lyla’s wedding, even one of Andrew and Lyla gearing up to go skydiving, huge grins on their faces.

 

And then there were the paintings.

 

Andrew had loved to paint, particularly sunsets, and the coffins were flanked by several of his pieces. There was one that was all black but for a tiny strip of red; another exploding with pinks, purples, and oranges, brushed with clouds of every gray over calm waters.

 

She would never forget those paintings.

 

Over the next year, she started watching the embalming process, learning about the art of make-up and the science of body preparation. Fear of fire kept her from watching cremations, but she did get herself to look at the final result: a life’s vessel reduced to ash. She pronounced herself ready and was thus introduced to the full spectrum of life – from newborns to centenarians – and death: birth defects, genetic diseases, illnesses, infections, accidents, assaults, murders, suicides, age and time. She discovered that she wasn’t squeamish and that while she was curious, to a degree, regarding the science of death, she was _more_ curious about the deceased themselves; felt the need to see every body, no matter how damaged or heartbreaking, because to _not_ see it would be almost like ignoring that person’s existence, dismissing their life history. Something that just felt…..wrong. Disrespectful.

 

Because if there was one thing her mum had taught her, it was to always be respectful.

 

The way each body was handled – from the stillborn infant to the clinically depressed teenager who hung herself, the ninety-six year old great-grandmother who went peacefully in her sleep to the thirty year old whose first bee sting ended in anaphylaxis on a camping trip, to the animal abuser stabbed by his neighbor and the serial killer shot by the police – they were all treated with respect.

 

Maybe it was because of how it related to her mum’s lessons. Maybe it was even how her mum got through it all herself. But somehow, that simple respect brought her enough comfort to keep coming back to the hurt and sadness.

 

She thought of Andrew and his sunset paintings often; wondered if he’d ever painted sunrises before he knew what death – and endings - were.

 

What she _didn’t_ think of, however, was that the inordinate amount of time she had spent in a funeral parlour since the age of eight could be considered shocking or cruel. She may not have told her friends about it, but it was more out of wanting to keep her private time with her mum private than worrying about them thinking her odd. She knew that her mum’s career – and her personal exposure to that career -  was different, but it all felt……important somehow. And so she never even considered questioning it.

 

Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, her mum shooed her out of the preparation areas and sent her out to attend the chapel of rest and funeral services. For a full six months, she had no contact with the deceased until seeing them at the chapel of rest, church, or other personalized service. She helped prepare and clean up the chapel at the funeral parlour and handed out order of service sheets at the funerals, but most of all she greeted mourners, walked about, and _listened_. _Observed_. And thus she began to hear, not just the stories of the deceased, but how their stories were intertwined with those of the people they left behind. She read the impact of the lost life on every face in the room, saw exactly what the deceased meant to every friend, family member and casual acquaintance in attendance. It was richness beyond measure, seeing and hearing that life in context; a streaming video rather than audio snippets from the other undertakers or still photos on memorial boards.

 

She began to mingle with the crowds, meeting eyes ranging from blank, haunted, and overflowing with grief, to those filled with fond remembrance, acceptance, laughter, and even relief. She listened to the silence of voices that didn’t trust themselves to speak, to cracked, hiccupping ones under tearful eyes, to contagious laughter at a well-told tale. So many people and so many ways of approaching loss; endless permutations of emotions, facial expressions, body language, and tone.

 

One day she was pulled into conversation outside the chapel of rest by one of her mum’s colleagues as Henry, the deceased’s older brother, was sharing a fond memory of booby-trapping George’s piano and the resulting, escalating prank war.

 

“We never did declare a winner,” Henry chuckled as the story came to an end, eyes suddenly going misty. “He did love to play.”

 

She wasn’t sure why – one of those spontaneous actions completely beyond her control that seemed to happen to her out of nowhere sometimes – but she mentioned her own love of the piano. Fifteen minutes later, at Henry’s request, she was seated at the funeral parlour’s old piano playing Fur Elise. George could have hated that song for all she knew, but it was the only piece she knew by memory, and Henry had sounded so hopeful.

 

When the song was finished, Henry came up to the piano and kissed her hand like a prince in a fairytale, eyes bright over a smile that was wistfulness, gratitude, and something deeply private all at once. “Thank you.”

 

“What for?” she’d wanted to ask. But then she _really_ saw his eyes, read the comfort he had received from the music, the respect she had shown not only George, but _him_ as well, and she understood.

 

She didn’t know it then, but that moment was a turning point; a whole new beginning.

 

Over the next year and a half, she became busier with school and other activities, but still attended the occasional chapel viewing or funeral service, often playing requested piano pieces to honor the deceased and comfort the living. She found her focus shifting to the point where she didn’t even need to do more than glance at the deceased; everything was right there in the living who had known them. Most of all though, she began to see an underserved need: that the living needed just as much, if not _more_ , respect and care as the deceased’s body did. Support that they often didn’t get enough of because so few seemed to know how to give it.

 

Her seventeenth birthday came and went and death hit close for the first time as her classmate Susanna died of leukaemia. She went to the chapel viewing and funeral service, to the cemetery for the burial itself, and to the cramped flat afterwards, cradling a cup of tea to her chest and talking to Susanna’s parents and relatives better than any of the adults there. She was a calm, solid presence in a sea of mourning adults and shocked teenagers. Through her own tears and loss she listened, shared, supported, and respected as naturally as breathing; found that she couldn’t _not_ do it.

 

Her mum pulled her aside at home later that night, gave her a big hug, and told her how proud she was of her.

 

And that’s when she finally understood what, honestly, she’d unconsciously known all those years. All those little looks, lessons, and experiences. “You did all of this on purpose. To teach me.”

 

Her mum smiled and ducked her head, fingering the gold ring lying on her chest. “We all fear death, our own mortality. It’s part of being human. But I didn’t want you to fear it from lack of knowledge or exposure. As for the rest…..well, it’s important to know how to respect the dead, but it’s even _more_ important to know how to care for the living they leave behind. Anyone can learn how to treat a dead body. Very few ever learn how to treat the lives that body touched.”

 

She would never learn a greater lesson.

 

The years passed. She went to university, married and had children of her own. Some may have found it surprising that, with her unique upbringing, she didn’t go into mortuary science, bereavement counseling, or even medicine. But her mum’s lessons and pride were never contingent on a career path and she grew to realize that just because she was good at something and understood it better than most, it didn’t mean that she had to make it a profession. She took a job in hospital administration – a friendly voice and efficient hands helping smooth the way for the clinical staff to do their work - and no longer attended strangers’ chapel viewings or funeral services; only those of friends and family. It was enough.

 

Time went on: joys and sorrows, births and deaths, new lines in her face and hands, and gray in her hair. Her mum passed at age sixty-three, peaceful and free of pain, at home with hospice’s support and her family by her side, five months after cancer’s initial invasion. Her good friend Emily committed suicide at forty-eight after being diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s. And her childhood neighbor, Mr. Temin, passed in his sleep, a smile on his lips the day after his one hundredth birthday. Prominently displayed at his colorful, upbeat memorial service was his final note to his loved ones: _“If I see you tossers moping around my coffin dressed all in black, I swear I’ll haunt your arses.”_

 

After each service she’d come home and rest her hand on the sunset painting she’d bought for her dorm at uni – the one she’d taken to every flat since – and think of Andrew.

 

Death, she’d come to realize, was a lot like sunsets. Some were beautiful and peaceful, others just a sudden plunge into darkness. And those in its wake, whether mourning the sun’s loss or finding joy in the beautiful sky left behind, those people, with the proper care, went on.

 

She hadn’t expected to care for a stranger again, but then she had never expected to be introduced to the dead at eight years old, play the piano for the grieving at fifteen, or still be thinking of Andrew thirty-eight years later. Life had a funny way of disregarding expectations.

 

And so it was that on what would have been her mum’s seventy-fifth birthday, she found herself, a St. Bart’s administrator surrounded by clinical staff and on-lookers, mum’s ring on her hand and Emily’s watch on her wrist, being the only person who could put their back to the broken body of Sherlock Holmes and properly care for John Watson instead.

 

***

 

She didn’t know how she ended up outside that day. She had been walking back to her office when two nurses and a medic rushed past her and out the door. Perhaps she found the sense of immediacy odd in the absence of an ambulance siren. Or maybe it was the fact that no one was pulling on gloves or protective gowns as they ran, nor was there a stretcher or other medical equipment in tow, almost like the trio had been waiting for a signal of some sort; one with an already understood end. Either way, it shouldn’t have mattered – she had no medical training, so what could she hope to do? Yet she found herself running with them, out to the gray pavement and equally gray sky, cold air harsh on her skirt-bared legs and through her thin black shoes.

 

There was a body lying on the ground; imposing black coat and curly black hair marred by an expanding pool of red, and her first thought was not of death, but of Andrew’s painting. As she reached the small crowd of shocked on-lookers being corralled by blue-scrubbed nurses, gasped snippets of “jumped,” “roof” and “oh, God” began filtering through and her chest clenched: _Emily_. But she kept moving. The medic crouched by the body, the nurses moved everyone back and formed a line with the on-lookers, creating a sort of barrier to the rest of the street. Everyone was focused on the dead body.

 

Everyone except for her.

 

Maybe it was the culmination of her mum’s lessons; the fact that she had been exposed to death’s forms since childhood enough that she didn’t _need_ to look, the shock not as great. Or maybe it was just another one of those uncontrolled, unconscious drives, like mentioning her own piano study to a grieving stranger. Either way, she found herself standing in a dead man’s blood, putting her back to the body – the only one to do so – and facing the on-lookers and nurses, holding her arms out as a barrier even though none of them were trying to get closer any longer.

 

Until one of them was.

 

It wasn’t until that moment, when the dazed man in the practical black jacket came pushing through the crowd and into her arms that she understood why she had been drawn outside.

 

 _He_ was the reason she was there.

 

Even before he spoke, she knew who he was. The on-lookers were shocked, shaken by what they were seeing: a stranger’s sudden, violent death. The nurses alternated between sad, cringing expressions – another life lost – as they kept alongside the on-lookers, blocking further view from the street and waiting to see how and if they were needed. But the man pushing single-mindedly, desperately through the crowd, hazy, haunted eyes already locked onto the body as if they had never looked away – _oh God, he had watched it happen_– _he_ was a friend. A loved one left behind.

 

And while she may have had no official authority there, she knew where her responsibility lay.

 

This was _her_ territory.

 

And so she took charge.

 

The man pushed through, on-lookers giving way, until he was funneled right into her.

 

She did not give way.

 

“I’m a doctor, let me come through. Let me come through, please. No, he’s my friend. He’s my friend, please.”

 

His voice caught on the repeated “he’s my friend”; the professional broken by the personal. One of the nurses, tangled brown fringe over stricken eyes, tried to help hold him back, attention torn between the anguished man and the broken body he insisted on reaching, while the other nurse’s hands hovered close by in non-tactile support. He struggled through them both, never even seeing them.

 

She never let go; a solid wall of humanity.

 

Standing right in front of him, she swiftly progressed from a hand on his left shoulder – a gentle ‘you don’t need to see anymore’ – to getting an arm fully under his left and blocking his chest with her body, trying to physically hold him from gaining any more ground. He was strong though, and single-minded, eyes only for his friend, never on her; as if he didn’t really _feel_ the contact even as he struggled through it. Through _her_ : his last barrier. And yet, despite having to fight to keep herself in his path, she could sense his own innate humanity under the grief; his struggle to the body persistent and determined, but never violent. Her focus solely on him, she got her other arm around his chest and refused to release him, even as his left hand grasped her shoulder – half attempting to push her aside, half pushing down and simply working around her - to lean all his weight forward, right hand stretching painfully for contact with his friend. The only contact he’d actually feel.

 

It was at that moment, his face close and his previous words – _I’m a doctor, he’s my friend_ \- hanging in the air, that she was able to name him: Dr. John Watson. Which would make the deceased Sherlock Holmes. She may not have known them personally, but she knew _of_ them; recognized them from the papers, the telly, and the doctor’s infamous blog.

 

But he was a friend first, a name second, and so the new information did nothing to change her duty or how she’d carry it out.

 

She still had a solid hold on him as he leaned over her left shoulder and sought out Mr. Holmes’s wrist, doctor’s hands automatically seeking verification of what his eyes and heart undoubtedly already knew. As his fingers lingered on the absent radial pulse, she moved her arm from his chest, keeping her right under his left for support, and laid her hand on Dr. Watson’s forearm – a careful introduction; slow steps toward a wounded animal - before gently moving down to his wrist, and finally to his hand, gently prying it away from the pale flesh.

 

For a moment, all she could see was their hands, the chaos around them muted and shrouded, all of existence pared down to three stories; three lives intertwined in a moment of finality. The long fingers – musician’s fingers if she didn’t know better – and manicured nails of the brilliant deceased. The skilled and impossibly steady hand of a man whose world had just shattered; a healer/protector with quiet strength. And the gentle hand of a woman – stranger to them both – guided since the age of eight for this very moment, clad in the silver and gold armor of her own losses.

 

And then, with a stab of vindictive cruelty, the world sped up again; an inescapable tidal wave of shock, loss, and violent death, threatening to drown them all.

 

Dr. Watson went under.

 

Within milliseconds of breaking the physical connection between him and Mr. Holmes, the strength she’d read in Dr. Watson’s hand and had felt as he pushed his way through her was swept away; decimated with the final proof. His voice gave out, protesting the separation – “please, let me just” – followed a second later by his legs as they collapsed underneath him. It was only her continued grip under his left arm that kept him from dropping hard, allowing her to somewhat awkwardly ease his descent and follow him to the ground.

 

And then it was just the two of them on the cold pavement; two crouched figures surrounded by two sets of blue scrubs and hovering hands making them into an island within the sea of on-lookers who still couldn’t look away. She had shifted on the way down to crouch at Dr. Watson’s right side, maintaining her as-yet uninterrupted contact with a firmly supportive, grounding grip under his arm. But not only was she the only one to follow him to the ground and never break physical contact with him, she was also the only one completely focused on _him_ with the same intensity with which he focused on his dead friend. The on-lookers looked at Mr. Holmes. The nurses, while standing around them and creating a supportive, and much appreciated, shield, did look at Dr. Watson, but never kept their focus on him; attention often pulled to Mr. Holmes, the onlookers, and the administrator planted firmly at Dr. Watson’s side.

 

It wasn’t surprising. The nurses’ physically injured patient was beyond their help and when it came to emotional wounds, they had the entire group of onlookers to consider; perhaps they were shielding her and Dr. Watson because they recognized her connection with him and were glad to turn care of that particular patient over to her. The onlookers were too shocked by the broken body to handle the devastated friend equally, if invisibly, bleeding out at his side. And, as her mum had taught her, it was generally easier for people to deal with a dead body than to deal with the living they left behind. She didn’t hold it against anyone. She simply recognized the pattern, the need, and stepped in to fill the void.

 

Because she didn’t need the familiarity of funeral parlour walls to recognize that there were people caring for Mr. Holmes and that _she_ was there to care for his friend.

 

Angled now in her crouch at Dr. Watson’s side, Mr. Holmes to her right rather than at her back, her peripheral vision caught sight of the medic and newly arrived paramedics turning the body onto its back. She didn’t need to have been looking at Dr. Watson while it happened. She didn’t even need to have seen it herself. She could have been struck blind seconds before and _still_ have known the exact moment that blood-streaked, empty-eyed face was brought into full view.

 

Because Dr. Watson let out a groan that could have once been an “oh” before grief filled his lungs, drowning its release to an incomprehensible keen of jumbled, thickly emotional consonants. “Jesus, no. God, no.” He had touched his friend’s hand; felt the absent pulse in the wrist and watched the lax fingers drop back to the ground as he was pulled away. Now he was seeing Mr. Holmes’s face full-on, and what he saw drew those nauseated pleas from the very heart of him. He managed to look blank and about to be sick at the same time, the last two words on the edge of tears that his eyes weren’t ready to release yet. He leaned a bit to his left, refusing to look away from Mr. Holmes despite the pain of seeing paramedics loading his friend’s broken body onto a stretcher. Most people wouldn’t have wanted that to be their last image of a loved one, but Dr. Watson’s unwavering focus felt more like principle than shock. As if he had sworn to see this friendship through to whatever end and he would not betray his word, no matter the personal cost. At one point the two of them exchanged words; his eyes still on Mr. Holmes’s body, hers still firmly on him. She would never remember what they said to each other in that moment, just as she would never forget the chill of the jacket in her grip, or the way his boneless collapse to the ground hid the tension and fine tremors warring for control in the muscles under her hand.

 

It was only once Mr. Holmes’s body was beyond his sight that Dr. Watson’s eyes finally left his friend and stared straight ahead to the empty, blood-marred pavement with a seemingly impossible combination of overwhelming shock and utter emptiness. She could pinpoint the exact moment that his world crumbled, all life and purpose ripped out of him, leaving him desolate; reeling. He dropped his head, no longer possessing the strength to hold it up, and listed to his right, into her grip, turning his slack mouth and devastated eyes into her shoulder and chest, looking away from the scene for the first time. But he wasn’t hiding. It was more like…..seeking shelter amidst the ruins of an unexpectedly decimating storm.

 

She leaned over him, protecting the protector, honored to provide it.

 

Even if it was only for a few seconds.

 

Because then that inner strength stubbornly resurfaced – whether by sheer force of will or an unfortunate amount of practice from similar scenarios, she wasn’t sure – and Dr. Watson was on his feet. Head bowed, eyes closed, he raised his hands to shoulder height, palms out, silently pushing everyone away. His face may have been ducked, but it wasn’t covered, so she could read the story of a man who needed air and space just as easily as the hands that clearly said “back off.” There was a hint of that humanity again as he gave a minute head nod, acknowledging peoples’ support and responding to the silent and verbal queries as to whether he’d be all right, but the positioning of his hands and set of his shoulders were clearly those of an overwhelmed, crowded man who desperately needed space to sort himself out.

 

There was no further need for words, touch or presence. Her work was done. Even so, her hand came up to linger near his shoulder once he dropped his defensive gesture, and it was only when he finally looked up, staring straight ahead, unseeing, through the dispersing crowd, that she finally walked away; the last person to do so.

 

But once she reached the hospital doors, she turned to look at him one last time; one final check. Like the impossibly steady hand that had confirmed Mr. Holmes’s death, Dr. Watson was standing tall, hands at his side, fingers loosely curled, halfway to the fists that post-suicide anger would, at some point, inevitably bring. Lips pressed, he was shattered and empty, resigned and resolved all at once; eyes locked on someone, some future only he could see. It made her heart ache desperately despite, or perhaps _because,_ of how familiar it all looked on him. Like his earlier collapse and leaning into her had been a brief, rare loss of self-control and this….this was him returning to a default setting; something he’d used and relied on many times before.

 

She watched him sway briefly, but remain firmly on his feet. Yes, there was certainly strength there; she couldn’t _not_ see it. He wouldn’t break. He had been lost, hurt, and alone before. But he _was_ grieving. _Would_ grieve. And she wasn’t sure which feeling overwhelmed her more as she turned away: worry that he’d cut himself off from the mutual support of others that Mr. Holmes left behind, or honor that he’d allowed her – a stranger’s – touch and presence in the initial devastation.

 

She was already through the door when Dr. Watson’s chest started heaving, leaving only one man, one stranger, to witness that private release: the one holding the weapon intended to have stopped him from breathing altogether.   

 

Back inside the hospital, she went straight to the loo, telling herself that the lump in her throat _had_ to pass because she hadn’t felt like this after a stranger’s passing since Andrew. Ten minutes later she was still standing in front of the sink, bare feet tingling on the chilled tile. She looked up into the mirror, to her tear-streaked face – if Dr. Watson couldn’t cry yet, she would cry for him – then down to shaking hands that could still feel the warring muscles under his dark, unassuming coat. With a heavy breath, she finally turned on the sink, knowing that it was the hands and face of the living – of Dr. Watson – that would haunt her long after she washed the dead man’s blood from her shoes.

 

The sink ran red, then pink, then clear. She replaced her shoes, dried her face, and went back to work.

 

That night, she lit a candle and sat in her darkened sitting room, staring at the sunset painting and absently twisting her mum’s ring on her finger. Her husband kissed her head, draped a blanket around her shoulders, and let her be.

 

That weekend, she went to the coast, escaping the sensationalized suffocation of “suicide of fake genius” headlines for the wide-open crash of salt-water waves.

 

Braving the chill, she stayed on the beach that first night to photograph the sunset. It was cold and abrupt, leaving a black sky with a bare smudge of red.

 

Most people who had been at St. Bart’s that day would have thought of Sherlock Holmes; of dark coats, darker hair, and thick blood on gray pavement.

 

She thought of Andrew; of paintings, death, and endings.

 

But most of all, she thought of John Watson; of grief and loss, determination and despair. She wondered if he found peace in watching winter sunsets too, cold air cleansing his lungs even as it stung his eyes, wind rough through his hair.

 

Or if he had lost that too.

 

  


	2. Tag to "Sunset's Wake"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week later, she walked into her office to find a potted plant, a neatly wrapped package, and her colleague all sitting on her desk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
> 
> Written: 12/10 – 12/24/12
> 
> Notes: A tag to my story “Sunset’s Wake”, inspired by chappysmom’s comment: “And there's a part of me hoping that somehow Mycroft's CCTV caught some of this and she found flowers on her desk some day or some kind of anonymous thank you from Sherlock for taking care of John when he truly needed help the most.” I began to think of how Mycroft’s brand of creepy omniscience would translate to gratitude and how someone unfamiliar with his style would react to experiencing it for the first time. This piece was the result. Apologies to all the botanists and horticulturists out there – I’m sure I probably fudged the plant details a bit (hopefully not too badly) for the purposes of this tale. As always, I truly hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading and thank you chappysmom for the inspiration!

 

 

 

A week later, the papers having shifted from “suicide of fake genius” to the “I believe in Sherlock Holmes” graffiti phenomenon, she walked into her office to find a potted plant, a neatly wrapped package, and her colleague all sitting on her desk.

 

“Morning, dear. You’ve got pressies!” Diane greeted her with a bright smile.

 

“I see,” she noted, hanging up her coat. “Well?” she cocked an eyebrow when no elaboration followed.

 

“Well what?”

 

“Well, it’s not my birthday or our anniversary, so what’s he up to?” she gestured at the gifts.

 

“Sorry, love, it wasn’t that dishy husband of yours,” Diane winked approvingly. “Some brunette walked in about fifteen minutes ago, dropped them off, and left without a word. Don’t think she even noticed I was here, to be honest. I tried to get a name, but the way she was texting on that mobile of hers, you’d think the fate of the bloody world was at stake.”

 

“Huh,” she chuckled lightly, walking up to the gifts with growing curiosity. “Starting the day off with a proper mystery then, are we?”

 

Diane pushed herself off the desk and out of the way. “Let me know if I need to call Security,” she said, heading for the door.

 

“I think my secret admirer days are over,” she countered, frowning at the unaddressed envelope taped to the brightly colored package.

 

“Right, like you’re so old and awful that nobody would want you,” Diane snorted from the doorway.

 

“I’m fifty-two and married,” she met her friend’s eyes pointedly.

 

“Which means nothing to an obsessed or misguided creep. Best to nip the freaks in the bud, love. You know that,” Diane went suddenly serious.

 

Ah, so _that’s_ why Diane had met her this morning: friendly concern and a reminder of the security seminar they’d all received last year after a former patient began stalking several staff members. “I’ll let you know,” she promised, sinking into her chair.

 

“Good,” Diane nodded, satisfied. She lingered in the doorway for another few seconds, eyes on the gifts, until her phone rang and she hurried off to answer it, humming softly under her breath.

 

Once alone, she set caution aside for a moment and leaned toward the pink flowers, breathing in the light fragrance with a warm smile. She knew nothing about horticulture beyond what looked nice, but she had always preferred potted plants and gardens to cut flowers soon destined for the rubbish bin. These looked almost like double roses - a suckering shrub called _Rosa_ _spinosissima_ 'Andrewsii' according to the Royal Horticultural Society card attached to the wrapping. Tucking the card aside to read the rest of the description and care instructions later, she took another breath of the flowers – a welcome bit of spring in the midst of a cold, gray morning – and reached for the package.

 

Nostalgia blossomed deep within her chest at the purple wrapping paper – still her favorite color after all these years. Carefully removing the blank envelope from the vibrant wrapping, she opened it to find a card with a picture of a stunning sunset on the front. For a few moments she just sat quietly, memories ebbing and flowing as she traced the colors with the barest brush of her fingertip. Blinking rapidly as Diane’s phone jarred her back to the present, she finally opened the card to find the blank space marked by a single line written in what appeared to be an old fountain pen; the kind of precise calligraphy reminiscent of the days of frock coats and top hats, where gentlemen never left the house without pocket watches and walking sticks.

 

_Eo animo quidque debetur quo datur, nec quantum sit sed a quali profectum voluntate perpenditur._

 

She read the Latin with delight, conjuring up fond memories of musty books in uni libraries and late nights puzzling out noun declensions and verb conjugations. It was one of her favorite quotes from Seneca, the Roman philosopher and politician: _“The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the debt is acknowledged; it's the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that's weighed.”_ It had always reminded her of her mum; of simple kindnesses to strangers and doing the right thing.  

 

So struck was she by memory that it took a second reading to notice that the card wasn’t signed and a third to realize that the Latin was not accompanied by an English translation.

 

It was the latter that got her thinking.

 

Not many people enjoyed Latin to the point where they could translate ancient quotes as readily as she just had. In fact, there were only four people who knew of her deep love and knowledge of Latin and the note’s author, whoever he – judging by the handwriting – was, certainly wasn’t one of them. A flicker of uncertainty rippled through her gut. The quote was definitely purposeful rather than pretentious; the author knew that she’d be able to read it. But how did this stranger know that? And what gift was he referring to? She hadn’t given anyone any presents recently, nor had she attended any funeral services as a supportive presence, so what……

 

Uncertainty became a distant memory as she unwrapped the package, purple paper falling to the floor as it revealed the exact same digital camera she had been looking at in the shops after returning from her weekend at the shore. Her heart leapt into her throat, mouth dry and hands shaking as she put it all together: the camera (to better photograph sunsets), the untranslated Latin (not only a reference to her uni days and continued love of the language, but an obviously significant quote to both sender _and_ receiver), the purple wrapping paper (the same shade of Mary’s dress on the funeral parlour table when she was eight years old and still her favorite color today), the sunset photo on the card (her metaphor for death, the painting in her sitting room), and finally, the one that caught her breath in her chest  –   _Rosa spinosissima_ 'Andrewsii.’

 

_Andrew_.

 

Andrew and his sunset paintings. Memories of a black sky and smudge of red – one on canvas flanking two coffins, the second just a few days ago, thirty-eight years later, on a cold, winter beach. Images of imposing black coats, dark curly hair, and thick blood on gray pavement. Of mum’s gold ring, Emily’s silver watch, and a trio of hands: hers, the deceased Mr. Holmes’s, and that of the dazed man in the practical black jacket, who awoke her intuitive gift to care for strangers left behind in sunset’s wake.

 

_Dr. Watson._

 

The thought of Mr. Holmes’s friend warmed her galloping heart even as the memory of the physician’s devastating grief broke it all over again. She could almost feel herself reaching for some of Dr. Watson’s strength and steadiness, to ease her pounding pulse and trembling hands. She recalled the local papers’ coverage of Mr. Holmes’s funeral; the widely publicized photo of Dr. Watson – military bearing so crisp she couldn’t help but see a full dress uniform instead of the dark suit he actually wore – acting as one of the lead pallbearers, the focused, yet distant look in his eyes a mirror of her last sight of him alone on the pavement outside St. Bart’s. She thought of his repeated refusal to say a word to the reporters, of his silent blog, and not for the first time since that day, she desperately hoped he was letting other people into his grief, the way he’d briefly allowed her support.

 

But then the fact that Dr. Watson would not have thanked her in such a mysteriously invasive manner overrode the brief respite from fear’s physiological storm and panic began to suffocate her once more; respirations escalating to the point where she dropped her head to the desk in an attempt to manage the dizziness.  

 

Oh, God. Her stomach rolled with nausea; the impossible degree to which her privacy had been violated terrifying in its implications. It was as if this stranger got into her very memories; details only she and her mum - gone twelve years now - had ever known.

 

“You all right in there, love? Need me to make any calls?”

 

She pulled in a ragged breath at the familiar sound of Diane’s voice through the wall. Of _course_ she should call Security. These gifts and their mysterious sender were frightening, invasive and dangerous; the work of a madman who could see through her without ever meeting her, a man devoid of boundaries, who either disregarded or completely lacked foresight regarding normal human emotional response……..

 

She began to laugh.

 

That unconscious impulse, the same one that had brought her to Dr. Watson’s side last week, suddenly resurfaced, bringing with it such fear-crushing understanding that terror was overtaken by sheer bloody laughter. Because that list of concerns? The ones that should have had her on the phone with Security at that very moment? Those were _exact_ descriptions of Sherlock Holmes, given by people who had met him on cases, as seen in the papers since his death. She could imagine a man of that description choosing that particular Seneca quote – unsigned and without further elaboration - as a circuitous method of conveying gratitude; a man who rarely said ‘thank you’, who may not have anticipated that what she had done for Dr. Watson that day would be necessary, but recognized its importance when he saw it all the same.

 

Obviously, it couldn’t have been Mr. Holmes. However she _had_ seen such traits follow family lines in siblings. Another Mr. Holmes perhaps? Yes, she could picture Sherlock Holmes having a brother; one who shared the sharp eyes and unimaginable resources to put something like this together.

 

“Love?”

 

Her laughter grew louder, bubbling past any lingering vestiges of fear. She was still angry at the seemingly impossible violation of her privacy, but like Seneca advised, she could weigh its intention. Mr. Holmes’s brother - as she chose to believe both existed and was responsible for the gifts - may have been dangerously connected and observant, and his approach to debt repayment creepily misguided, potentially scarring, and oblivious to normal social patterns, but its intent was honest, personal gratitude: on behalf of himself _and_ his deceased brother.

 

Dr. Watson must have been a respected friend of both Holmes brothers for her actions that day to warrant such personalized attention. She teared up again at the memory of coiled muscles warring between tension and tremors under her hand, even as she smiled at the inherent steadiness and strength that had been underneath it all; qualities that would be quite necessary in dealing with two such men as she now characterized the Holmes brothers to be. She thought of the snow on her way to work, of the upcoming holiday season, and tried to imagine Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes, and Mr. Holmes’s brother at Christmas dinner.

 

She had met Dr. Watson once, at one of the worst times in his life. What she knew of Mr. Holmes came from the papers and telly and she had no idea if another Holmes brother even _existed_ in real life. Yet she pictured the scene anyway.

 

And lost control.

 

That was how Diane found her: laughing hysterically at the mental image of two eccentric, dangerous brothers and a grounded physician all wearing Christmas jumpers around a laden table while simultaneously crying at the memory of Dr. Watson’s grief and loss, of his hands and face in the wake of his friend’s violent, abrupt sunset.

 

“Blimey, sweetheart! What’s happened?! Are you all right?” Diane stood, shocked, in the doorway.

 

She swiped messily at her eyes and running nose with one hand, cradling the card to her chest with the other. “I’m all right, Diane. Really, I’m fine.”

 

Tears were salty on her lips as she sniffled against a sob and choked on the chuckle it collided with, but she wasn’t lying, no matter how incredulous Diane looked.

 

“I’m fine,” she repeated, smiling as she rode out the emotional explosion.

 

And it was the truth. She _was_ fine.

 

Absolutely fine.   

 

      

 

 


	3. S3 tag to Sunset's Wake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The news was proclaiming Sherlock Holmes’s return from the dead. All she could think about, however, was John Watson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
> 
> Written: 5/25/14
> 
> Notes: As much as I loved writing this background character, I thought her tale was finished – until I found myself drawn to a local cemetery the day before Memorial Day, where she gave me this piece in one sitting. As always, I truly hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading. I cherish every response.

  
 

 

 

She was just entering the cemetery when her mobile chirped a text alert from her husband.

 

_Sorry, love,_ _but I thought you’d want to know straight away._

She frowned at the link attached to the text. Her husband knew she didn’t read the news on remembrance days – the one day every three months when she went to the cemeteries to pay her respects to her mum, Emily, and Andrew’s family. She only had room for so much emotion on a _normal_ day; on remembrance days, she just couldn’t handle the world’s grief on top of her own.

 

A few tentative raindrops fell as the sun and clouds continued their morning-long dance for dominance.

 

The mobile chirped again: _Phone if you need me._

Torn between concern and curiosity, she set her flowers at the base of a gnarled tree sheltering the wind-worn stones of a family gone nearly two hundred years and clicked on the link.

 

The breeze gasped with her; eyes misting despite the rain’s abrupt cessation.

 

Blood-marred pavement juxtaposed against a photo of an old Scotland Yard press conference – one where an unmarred, familiar face stood at the center, cloaked in an imposing dark coat and a joke of a hat that had quickly become just as synonymous with his name. A photo of a military man’s private grief at the loss of his other half made public, set alongside old headlines and photos of the pair at the height of their wholeness. The article linked to other similar articles, each headline vying for notoriety by stating the same news with varying degrees of sensationalistic wordplay.

 

But the core was still the same: Sherlock Holmes was alive.

 

A strangled chuckle, equal parts bitter anger and devastated memory, scraped her throat as roughly as the tree bark against her back as she slid to the ground. That she was reading the news of Mr. Holmes’s resurrection in a cemetery was inappropriately, hysterically dissonant. That it occurred next to the stones of a family dead since the early 1800s, on a device that would have been akin to science fiction to them, even more so.

 

Sherlock Holmes was alive; an unexpected sunrise amidst the lingering shadows of a violent sunset two years past.

 

A crow swooped low and landed on a nearby marker with a click of nails on stone; a harsh caw and looming presence as dark as the raven of Poe’s literary legacy. But as the sun surpassed the clouds, it tilted its head up to the warmth, blinking against the brightness as surely as she did at the glare off her mobile screen.

 

The sun was shining. Mr. Holmes was alive.

 

But all she saw, all she felt, was Dr. Watson in sunset’s wake.

 

The red poppy wreaths fluttering in the breeze became the blood she stood in while holding John Watson at the height of his grief; the pink flowers laid at the grave to her right that same blood diluted as she washed it from her shoes after letting him go. The crow’s strangled caw mirrored the raw vocalization of pain beyond words caught in Dr. Watson’s throat as he saw his friend’s lifeless eyes; the gray headstones the cold pavement under her feet, the gray sky above her. The ripple of hair against her neck echoed the tremors in Dr. Watson’s corded muscles under her sure, grounding grip.

 

Until a pair of voices flipped the pages of chapters past back to that of the present. A young couple had entered the cemetery, heading for a section of old stones. The young woman stood a few paces back while the young man snapped to attention, saluted the headstone, then bowed his head in respectful remembrance. After several moments, he reached out for his companion, who stepped forward, took his hand, and crouched down alongside him to somberly place flowers at the site. But when they stood, the solemnity was replaced with overflowing joy, the woman twisting a ring on her finger while the man exuberantly shared the news with a generation he’d surely never met.

 

Her mum’s ring scraped against gritty bark as she pushed on the tree and got to her feet. Laying one of the flowers from her bouquets at the foot of the family stone marking the loss of six children within four months of 1818, she began slowly walking toward Emily’s grave.

 

Gravel crunched under her feet on the main paths. An elderly woman looked up from placing a stuffed animal at a fresh grave with a sad smile. A variety of birds chattered and clicked in a dozen languages, flitting from headstones to trees and pecking at rain-tipped grass. A robin triumphantly pulled a worm from the soil three stones down from Emily’s, while the squirrel sitting on her friend’s grave jumped in alarm at her approach and ran off.

 

Her stay at Emily’s headstone was brief. A placement of fresh flowers – the red and orange of Andrew’s sunsets tempered with the bright yellow of Emily’s joyous personality. A touch of Emily’s warm, silver watch to cold, gray stone. A prayer without specific chapter or verse. Even in the immediate wake of Emily’s death, she’d known why Emily had done it; couldn’t really blame her for making that decision while she cognitively could. But it was still suicide. It still hurt. Still bombarded her with anger, grief, depression, guilt, and a silent, screaming demand for answers - _Why would you do this to me? What did I do to deserve this? –_ directed at intangible memories and an unyielding gravestone.

 

She wondered where Dr. Watson was in that maelstrom.

 

She detoured to an older section of graves on the way to her mum’s, placing a small bouquet of forget-me-nots at the foot of a chipped stone so worn with time and weather that it was no longer legible – the face nearly smoothed to a full tabula rasa. She bowed her head in respect for a life lived; a sunset unknown but for those who bore the words engraved on their hearts. Two bees began an eager dance around the flowers as she walked on to her final stop.

 

“Hi, mum,” she greeted the dark stone, ring hand brushing it with the same light touch inherent in the woman’s lifelong treatment of the deceased. The colorful bouquet was carefully crafted – Andrew’s sunsets, the light blue of her mum’s soothing presence, the purple of her own favorite color, the white of the hand and face coverings that eased her childhood self into knowing death. Laying it at the foot of the stone, she sat down alongside the flowers and traced the engraving with a thoughtful finger; silent communion with a life well-loved and well-lived.

 

She tried to imagine what it would be like if her mum, or Emily, suddenly walked back into her life. How the past’s grief, anger, and subsequent acceptance of loss would temper with the present’s potential joy of a story’s second chance to continue.

 

Her mobile chirped again – a manufactured syncopation to the surrounding birdsong. Her husband’s text, a simple heart, lay bright against the background image of the sunset photo she’d taken on a cold beach two years ago.

 

Getting to her feet with a pop of cartilage and a joke to her mum about her daughter getting old, she said her goodbyes and began walking back to the cemetery gates.

 

Having paid her respects to the dead, her thoughts returned to the living, just as her mum had taught her. To those left behind.

 

To Dr. Watson.

 

The headlines proclaimed that Sherlock Holmes was alive. But sunrise didn’t eliminate sunset, just as Lazarus rising from the tomb didn’t negate the pain of that tomb’s closing.

 

She wondered which hurt more – the renewed grief and anger or the reluctant, hopeful hint of joy.

 

But didn’t envy John Watson for knowing.


	4. Final Tag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John no longer believed in coincidence. He had been brought here to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
> 
> Written: 11/15/15
> 
> Notes: In the back of my mind, I always knew there was one more chapter for this character. It’s been six months since I wrote anything. Earlier this week, as a hospice nurse, I had the privilege of spending over two hours with a dying veteran who had no family, not wanting him to be alone as he moved closer to taking his final breath. This morning, I spoke with my grandmother, and as soon as the call ended, this story came out like a shot. This chapter is dedicated to my grandfather, who passed away last month. We spent hours discussing writing by phone and he always encouraged me to keep it up. I’ll miss those calls and his enthusiastic support. As always, I truly hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading. I cherish every response.

  
 

 

 

John stood just beyond the water’s reach, stifling a shiver as a deceptively soft, but bitter, wind slipped icy fingers under his scarf and down the back of his neck. Settling into the relaxed familiarity of ‘at-ease’, he watched Major Sholto cast the last of the ashes into the gray expanse, several white-capped waves peaking like the rows of headstones at too-familiar cemeteries as the sea accepted the last fragments of another good man gone too soon. Sholto stood silently, sharp eyes watching the air as if waiting until every last grain was taken up before executing a tight right turn and striding to John’s left side. Passing the empty urn to John, Sholto waited as he placed it in the sand in front of them with the solemn reverence of a wreath on Remembrance Sunday, before leading the small group of men in a final snap to attention and salute of farewell.

 

“Thank you, sir,” John said, brushing the sand from the base of the urn as he picked it up again, tucking it under his right arm as the rest of the men dispersed with quiet words and brisk handshakes under weary eyes. “Andy would have been honored, having you here.”

 

“He was a good man.” Sholto’s eyes shifted from the few departing veterans John had been able to find on short notice to the softening sky, gray giving way to a hint of pink - the chance of a sunset brighter than another overcast day.

 

“He always respected you, you know. And not just because you out-ranked him.”

 

“Even good men can be fools sometimes,” Sholto sighed, eyes out at sea.

 

“Well, I suppose you’ll be walking back with another fool, then,” John said simply as he started down the beach.

 

Sholto fell in step alongside him, eyes softening with a hint of a touched smile. “You were with him in the end?”

 

“He died about forty-five minutes after I left the hospice.”

 

“There was no one else?” Sholto’s eyes remained on the expanse of sand ahead.

 

“Only child, parents died years ago, no wife or kids. All he had was this,” John gestured lightly at Sholto’s uniform.

 

“Thank you, for being with him,” Sholto said quietly, the thick words of a man who found expressing gratitude a war of its own.

 

John swallowed, hard. “No one should have to die alone,” he said equally quietly, eyes haunted. “But some can’t make that final step until they are.”

 

Sholto nodded as John roughly cleared his throat and tightened his step.

 

They walked in silent companionship, steps unconsciously regimented, years of unwanted memories painfully back at the surface; eyes unwavering in their focus on the open space ahead as the claustrophobic pressure of history strove to drown them. But there was a reason Andy had wanted to be scattered to the openness of the sea - the same reason Sholto hadn’t hesitated when John phoned him about the memorial’s location. Because when the past sought to drown the present, it was, ironically, at the sea that men like them became most free. The open space reminded them that there was more than the confines of their own bodies; the crash of waves white noise against the memories shouting for control. The breeze, icy though it was that day, swept up those thoughts closest to the surface and sent them out to be buried at sea, or frozen as icicles hanging off the cliff faces.

 

A cleansing by ice, perhaps, rather than fire, but a cleansing all the same.

 

The sky sighed, dark gray fading into white smudges of cloud tinged with hints of pink and orange. The wind whipped John’s scarf with a snap echoed by the crunch of something under his shoe. Looking down, he found a brilliantly red piece of sea glass, perfectly smooth after being tossed by countless waves. Andy’s favorite color. John wasn’t much of a collector, but even he knew the color was rare. He pocketed the piece, running it through fisted fingers.

 

Sholto paused a few steps later, eyes on a growing swirl of color on the horizon, the changing sky tinting his scarred face back to the deep red it had been at the start of the healing process years before. His irises were shaded as deep and distant as the gray sea as his mind went back, until a rough burst of wind shook the memory from him and he tucked his weak left arm against his body, eyes clearing to the present, and resumed walking, John falling back in step as if they had never stopped.

 

Neither of them spoke until twenty minutes later, when another group of dark-clad figures appeared at the water’s edge. Altering their course slightly further up the beach to avoid interrupting, they soon realized that they hadn’t been the only ones who had found the sea an appropriate place to say goodbye that day.

 

There were about thirty or forty people there, hunkering down into coats and scarves against the increasing wind in the dying light, holding onto memorial boards plastered with pictures tinged with the pink and orange of the fading sun, trying to keep the wind from taking those memories too. John felt the weight of the urn under his right arm as he saw a man with jet black hair shot with white, tears unashamedly running down his face in a combination of grief and the sharp whip of sand in his face.

 

The wind brought his voice over the heads of the mourners.

 

“You know, she was afraid of fire ever since she was a little girl. But over the last few years, our flat became filled with candles. She’d sit for hours, watching the flames. Said it helped her let go. And…..” He paused, voice catching in his throat. “I think she knew, somehow, that she was going to….”

 

John stopped. Even the wind couldn’t take away the memory of that same pain in his own voice, the finality of that single syllable coming through a raw, swollen throat in a cracked half-whisper at Sherlock’s grave.

 

_Don’t. Be……. Dead._

 

The man took a shaky breath and scrubbed at his eyes. Despite the cold, he wasn’t wearing gloves, as if he wanted there to be nothing between him and the simple black urn, adorned with a vibrant purple ribbon. He still couldn’t say the word; pressed on instead. “Because that night, just before bed, she turned to me and said, ‘I want to be cremated. Bring me to the sea at sunset and let me go.’ Just like that.” He chuckled fondly through a wet sniffle. “Guess that’s what comes of having an undertaker for a mum.”

 

A ripple of choked laughter went through the crowd.

 

John was rooted to the sand, white-knuckled fingers grasping the sea glass in his pocket as he planted himself against the pull of the wind, the memory of swaying, alone, on gray pavement marked by thick blood; the place where his best friend, knowing he was about to die, couldn’t say the word either.

 

_This phone call…..it’s my note._

_Goodbye, John._

 

John forced bile down as the gray sea tinged pink with the setting sun, the color of blood diluted by late-day rain. The crash of waves the rushing sound in his ears as he struggled to Sherlock’s side. The cramp in fingers clutching sea glass the creak of his therapist’s armchair under spasming hands. The icy snap of the wind the cold of the flat as he sat alone, feet bare in the unheated space, too numb to even consider that there was a remedy for some of the chill he felt.

 

Sholto stood at John’s side, a silent pillar of support who didn’t need to look into the painful emptiness of John’s eyes to know _exactly_ where he was. Sholto could feel the ripples of Sherlock’s death coming off John in waves as white-capped as the sea itself; could feel the echo of a phone against his ear, the agonizingly sharp edges of John’s ragged breathing as words remained out of reach. Of papers proclaiming the suicide of a fake genius with increasing sensationalism while the phone line ran silent with the breaths of two isolated men who had each lost what was most important to them.

 

John snapped straighter, jaw clenching through a shot of fire in distant eyes; the bitter anger of Sherlock’s return, the betrayal that still, at times, marred the joy of rare second chances. Sholto had been privy to that anger as well, in a different sort of harsh breath over the phone late at night, the sound of teeth grinding and tight steps pacing. It was one of his and John’s greatest similarities – their fiercely controlled processing of grief and rage.

 

John sucked in a breath - agonal, like a man resuscitated. Tilting his chin with a bare nod – everything back in place, under control – he appeared ready to move on. Until a woman clutched at a large photo torn from the memorial board with a gust of wind, the image coming into clear view over bowed heads.

 

“John?” Sholto broke the silence as John paled.

 

John swallowed, dropped the sea glass in his pocket, and absently rubbed at his left temple, where his head had struck the ground in the street that day. Blue skirt and blazer, white blouse, Bart’s ID around her neck, gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, kind eyes glowing with laughter as she hugged the woman who now held the picture, silver watch and gold ring glinting in the fluorescent light of a hospital office……..

 

“John,” Sholto repeated, soft command tinged with concern.

 

“I know her,” John finally managed.

 

Sholto waited as John fought to resurface while the man took the lid off the urn cradled to his chest and spoke words neither of them truly heard.

 

“She was there…..” John couldn’t suppress a shiver at the memory of cold pavement through his jeans, the gentle, firm hand prying his fingers from Sherlock’s wrist, the supportive arm at his back, the warm shelter of compassionate humanity, of understanding, as his world shattered into blood-stained pavement, lifeless eyes, and a broken body, and he listed into her. “When Sh - ”

 

Sholto sucked in a quiet breath. When John had finally been able to talk about that day, he spoke of a woman - a woman with kind eyes, a rugby player’s firm blocking technique, and a compassion born of those who were no strangers to death. Even after Sherlock’s painful resurrection and the reveal of his convoluted deception, John had known that woman wasn’t part of Sherlock’s plot. There were some experiences, like repeatedly handling death and those left behind, that couldn’t be faked to those who knew them well.

 

And John was too well-versed.

 

John hadn’t told anyone else about the woman; only briefly mentioned her to Sholto, trusting his ex-commander’s understanding and discretion.

 

John had seen too much in both of his careers to believe in coincidence anymore. Meeting Mike Stamford on a park bench shortly after his return from Afghanistan had only cemented that belief.

 

He had been brought here to say goodbye. Not only to Andy, but to her.

 

“It was her,” Sholto said softly, almost reverently.

 

“It was her,” John echoed, voice back on emptied pavement running thick with blood.

 

Both men snapped to attention as the man turned to the sea and released the ashes with a choked “goodbye, love.”

 

John watched the ashes join the water, rippling orange and pink as the sun neared its final drop. The woman with the photo gently placed the purple ribbon on the outgoing pull of a wave’s end, and then it was over. Another life brought back to nature; elements of beaches and sunsets yet to be seen.

 

John turned to leave as the crowd began to pack up in the rapidly fading light. But the man came through the crowd, urn tucked under his right arm in a mirror of John, and held out a hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know you,” he said. “My mind’s a bit muddled, though, so forgive me if I should.”

 

“Ah, no, it’s all right. We’ve never actually met,” John shook his hand firmly.

 

The man didn’t seem to notice the absence of a name. “Well, thank you for coming. How did you know my wife?”

 

John paused. “I didn’t, really. We…..” He cleared his throat as the wind kicked sand between them. “…. met in passing. She was a good woman.”

 

“Yes, she was,” the man said wistfully. Someone called his name, and by the time he turned back, John and Sholto were far down the beach.

 

They walked silently until they found another secluded spot, standing just beyond the water’s reach as the sun sunk below the horizon, purples, oranges, and gray suddenly wiped out like a shot, leaving the sky dark with the barest smudge of red. John ran the red sea glass through his pocketed fingers; thought of Andy, a man he’d known for years, of a woman he’d only known for minutes, and the equal grief they now shared in his heart. Thought of life and death, sunrises and sunsets, friends gone to nature and friends returned to him through hardship and even death itself.

 

Sholto remained a silent presence at his side, allowing John to lead.

 

The red faded, black night taking over. The wind picked up, their coats stiff with sand and salt spray. John gave the barest of nods and Sholto followed suit, snapping to attention in a final act of respect and gratitude to those returned to the sea that night.

 

Then, with a click of heels muted by swirling sand, both men turned away from the waves and walked up to the road, cold air cleansing their lungs even as it stung their eyes, wind rough through their hair, and the night sky unrolling an ever-expanding blanket of stars to light their way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
